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Transcript/Script The Week in Space (TV)
HEADLINE: Pentagon Declassifies Evidence of UFOs
TEASER: Department of Defense sees them… doesn’t know what they are
PUBLISHED AT: 05/19/2022 3:23 pm
BYLINE: Arash Arabasadi
CONTRIBUTOR:
DATELINE: Washington
VIDEOGRAPHER: AP/ REUTERS/ Naval Air Systems Command/ Department of Defense/ NASA/ NASA TV
SCRIPT EDITORS: BR, sv
VIDEO SOURCE (S): AP/ REUTERS/ Naval Air Systems Command/ Department of Defense/ NASA/ NASA TV
PLATFORMS (mark with X): WEB __ TV X RADIO __
TRT: 3:04
VID APPROVED BY: BR,
TYPE: TVPKG
UPDATE: ))
[[INTRO: The U.S. Defense Department declassifies evidence of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs. A Mars rover ramps up while another winds down, and a look behind the phenomenon of a “blood moon.” VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.]]
((mandatory cg Naval Air Systems Command))
((VOX POP, MAN))
“They’re all going against the wind. The wind’s 120 knots to the west. Look at that thing, dude.”
((NARRATOR))
Objects in the sky have for centuries captivated stargazers – and often fueled speculation of alien visitors to our planet.
This week, these unidentified objects captured the attention of Capitol Hill ((the United States Congress)).
[RADIO TRACK: Subcommittee Chairman, Representative André Carson, speaking at Tuesday’s hearing as provided by Reuters.]
((Rep. André Carson, Democrat))
((REUTERS))
“UAPs are unexplained. It’s true. But they are real. They need to be investigated, and many threats they pose need to be mitigated.”
((mandatory cg Department of Defense))
((NARRATOR))
UAP, or Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, is the modern term for the UFO.
[RADIO TRACK: Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, Ronald Moultrie, speaking at that same hearing.]
((Ronald Moultrie, Department of Defense Undersecretary))
“UAP are airborne objects that, when encountered, cannot be immediately identified. However, is it the department’s contention that by combining appropriately structured, collected data with rigorous scientific analysis, any object that we encounter can likely be isolated, characterized, identified, and if necessary, mitigated.”
((mandatory cg Department of Defense))
((NARRATOR))
“Mitigate” is Defense-speak for: “We can shoot this out of the sky if we have to.”
The hearing didn’t shine any new light on the existence of extraterrestrial life, but it was notably the first hearing on UFOs – or UAPs – in more than 50 years. Pentagon officials still cannot explain away what we see in videos of UAPs, but they pledged to follow the evidence wherever it may go. The truth, for now, remains out there.
[RADIO TRACK: Next, NASA’s Bruce Banerdt on a video call as carried by AP.]
((mandatory cg NASA))
((Voice of Bruce Banerdt, InSight Principal Investigator))
“The animation that we’re bringing up here shows the latest large Mars quake that we obtained just about two weeks ago.”
((mandatory cg NASA))
((NARRATOR))
In other news, the mission of NASA’s InSight Mars Rover is winding down, but not before having recorded a recent Magnitude-5 marsquake, one of more than 13-hundred such quakes in InSight’s travel log.
((mandatory cg NASA TV))
((mandatory cg NASA))
((NARRATOR))
What started in 2018 from a launchpad at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, will likely come to an end later this summer, as the InSight team expects the Rover will then run out of power.
Scientists say InSight delivered details on the Martian crust, mantle, and core.
((mandatory cg NASA))
((NARRATOR))
But it wasn’t long before InSight had company on Mars, as the Perseverance rover – or, Percy for short – landed in early in 2021. Percy now enters the next phase of its mission: collecting rocks to be studied on Earth.
[RADIO TRACK: Rover scientist on NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover, Briony Horgan, on videolink with AP.]
((Briony Horgan, NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover Scientist))
“As we’re exploring Jezero Crater, we’re collecting little kinds of pen or pencil-sized samples of the cores of the rocks there. And that’s so that we can bring them back to Earth to verify whether or not there are signs of ancient life in those rocks. We’d love to do that with the Rover itself and find signs of life with the Rover, but we know that to really do that well and for sure, we need to bring those rocks back to Earth.”
((mandatory cg NASA))
((NARRATOR))
Percy’s extracted Martian samples likely won’t make it back to Earth until sometime around 2030.
((mandatory cg NASA))
Finally this week, if you were up late, looked up, and live in North or South America, you may have been treated to a total lunar eclipse also known as a “blood moon.”
((mandatory cg NASA))
The phenomenon happens when the Earth passes directly between the Moon and Sun resulting in light scattering through our atmosphere and for a brief time, painting the Moon orange. It was the first blood moon of 2022, and you can expect roughly two more this year.
((Arash Arabasadi, VOA News))
NewsML Media TopicsArts, Culture, Entertainment and Media
NetworkVOA
Location (dateline) Washington D.C.
Embargo DateMay 19, 2022 18:35 EDT
Byline((Arash Arabasadi, VOA News))
Brand / Language ServiceVoice of America - English
